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Free Press Correspondent

Upon first glance, Vermont’s early season schedule did not enthrall hockey coach Kevin Sneddon, particularly the two-week layoff between games at UMass-Lowell and Merrimack

“If your team doesn’t have the right mentality, the first week of practice during this break would not have been put to good use. They may have taken some shortcuts here and there,” explained Sneddon.

Instead, said Sneddon, the Catamounts have utilized every practice to address the flaws revealed in their 1-1 draw with Lowell as preparation for their two Hockey East games at Merrimack tonight (7:30 p.m.) and Saturday (7 p.m.).

“Right from the first practice we had after Lowell, our guys got after it,” Sneddon said. “They were excited by this opportunity to get better.

“We’ve pushed our guys hard during this 10-day stretch. We haven’t had a lot of off-time or easy practices,” Sneddon said. “We’ve really used the time to push our team into better game shape, better conditioning. We haven’t eased off the gas pedal. We’re tried to establish our practices as far more difficult than games so that by the time they get to games, it seems a little bit easier.”

“We had a pretty tough week of practice, so we’re excited to go out there and start playing again,” he said.

“We’re trying to keep practices pretty intense so when we come to a game, it’s pretty easy. You’re going to go hard every shift on the ice (in practice) sowhen you come to a game, it’s kind of second nature,” Franzon said.

The Catamounts (0-0-1; 0-0-1 HEA) are early in a run of nine consecutive Hockey East games to open the regular season, a pressurized start for a team seeking to establish itself as a competitive force in the league after two down seasons.

“They’re very important games, a lot of points every weekend, so we just try to stay focused, one game at a time,” Franzon said. “I think we did a pretty good job of that with Lowell … Now we’ve got Merrimack and that’s all we’re focusing on and that helps with the pressure.”

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Merrimack (1-3-0; 0-1-0 HEA) began its season with a 4-1 win over highly touted Union but lost to Northeastern before dropping two games in Alaska last weekend.

“They’re very similar in terms of their structure. They’re still occasionally going to leak a guy out in the neutral zone, play 4-on-4. They pack it in tight, they’re very disciplined in their defensive zone structures,” Sneddon said. “They block shots, they like to play along the wall and win wall battles. They’ve still got some really good talent up front although they lost some good really scorers; they’ve had some guys who’ve stepped up nicely in those roles.

“Goaltending’s they’re trying to figure out who’s going to be their guy. Right now Sam Marotta’s had more success than (Rasmus) Tirronen,” Sneddon said.

Forwards Josh Myers (2-3-5) and John Heffernan (1-3-4) and defenseman Dan Kolomatis (1-3-4) lead the Warriors in scoring. Marotta (2.02, .940) is the likely starter for tonight’s game.